AREA WEATHER

Ice and snow to the west and north hit pretty close to home for people in Jacksonville Wednesday. But the harsh weather in the Panhandle and Georgia ended up much worse than anything on the First Coast.

Things were easing Thursday morning.

Pre-dawn temperatures in Southeast Georgia were at or just below freezing while in Northeast Florida they were at freezing and just above, according to the National Weather Service. A winter weather advisory was scheduled to be in effect until 9 a.m.

Jacksonville was prepared to handle the conditions, officials said. Gina Busscher, spokeswoman with the Florida Department of Transportation, said they were raising and lowering drawbridges every two hours after dark in Jacksonville to prevent the mechanisms from freezing.

She said they have crews ready to assist the Florida Highway Patrol in case roads freeze over.

The FDOT also had a crew standing by with a truck of sand at the Main Street Bridge all night because the metal grating is the first thing that would freeze over, Busscher said.

“We don’t normally use salt but we do use sand because that’s what we use for fuel spills,” Busscher said.

She said the small window of the year when roads might freeze is not big enough to justify buying salt when they already have plenty of sand on hand.

Road closures are par for the course when winter weather makes its way to the South, but most road closures happened west and north of Jacksonville.

A detour was in place Wednesday night in the Panhandle, forcing drivers to use a portion of US 90 instead of Interstate 10 east from the Alabama border for almost 200 miles, according to the Florida Department of Transportation

SCHOOL CLOSINGS

Schools in Duval, Clay and St. Johns counties will remain open Thursday but schools in Nassau, Baker, Bradford, Columbia, Union, Suwanee and Hamilton counties will close their doors due to the winter weather.

School officials do not expect the roadways to be slippery enough to close schools in Duval, Clay or St. Johns.

Officials in Nassau said they have three calamity days and Thursday will be classified as one of those.

Atlanta was hit hardest in Georgia but every school in the state was closed Wednesday. Southeast Georgia experienced light snow and sleet with some ice on bridges.